


dancing for the desperate and the brokenhearted

by Sour_Idealist



Category: Brick (2005)
Genre: Closure, Dancing, F/M, Forgiveness, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-22
Updated: 2011-05-22
Packaged: 2017-10-19 16:51:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/203047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/pseuds/Sour_Idealist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing about knowing that nobody rides into the sunrise is that it doesn't mean that you know you'll see each other again. Damn surprises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dancing for the desperate and the brokenhearted

**Author's Note:**

> Written for viorica8957, for the prompt "so testosterone boys and harlequin girls/will you dance to this beat and hold a lover close?" Crossposting after some time.

Up until now, Brendan has believed there are only two reasons to go to a school dance: either you need an alibi backed up by a teacher, or you're a freshman. Seeing as he'd had Kara that first year, he’d never been to one. Apparently there's a third reason: you take a walk because the alternative is to set your room on fire, you're closer to the school than anywhere else when it starts to rain, and you still have goddamn pneumonia.

Hypothetically.

Which is why Brendan is currently slumped against the cafeteria wall looking like a drowned rat that somebody's dropped there. The situation does have one good point: he can't hear himself think.

This would be a lot more useful if Laura Dannon hadn't just slipped in the other door.

She's just finished brushing herself off as he reaches her; she glances up milliseconds before his fingers close lightly around her wrist, more a demand for her attention than a constraint. This isn't the place to get rough. Her lips move, out of time with the all-consuming music; he taps his ear, and then they're towing each other towards the hallway. It isn't until they're through the doorway that he realizes that from a distance they'd look like they're holding hands.

"What are you doing here?" he snaps, dropping her wrist. She takes a deep breath and brushes a strand of hair perfectly back into place.

"I'm out on bail. I came to deliver a message."

"To who?"

"You, actually." She pulls a crisp white envelope out of her purse, holding it up between two fingers. One edge crumples as he grabs it, careful not to touch her again.

"Well?" he bites out. "I'm here. What did you want to say?"

She stares past his shoulder. "I'll be in court during the funerals, it looks like, and I wanted an informal way to send flowers. I thought I could trust you not to pocket the money."

The envelope feels strangely heavy in his hands. He rips it open across the top - good paper, thick - and fans the paper out. The first bill he sees is a crumpled fifty.

"What kinds?"

Her eyes widen, just a little. "White lilies for the Pin, roses for Em."

"All right." He shoves the envelope into his pocket and leans back against the wall, folding his arms so it looks like nonchalance rather than the weariness that it actually is. He hasn't been sleeping, and from the way her look is lingering he suspects that she can tell.

"How come you're here?" she asks, tapping one scarlet-shod foot against the other. He shrugs.

"Getting out of the rain."

She switches her purse from hand to hand. "It looks like I'll plead guilty to possession with intent to supply, play up my age and hope the judge goes easy."

He can imagine what she'll look like, all wide frightened eyes and pretty soft helplessness. It's the complete opposite of way she's standing now, chin tilted up with the tendons on her neck standing out like they've been carved. He remembers hearing once that the hardest kind of steel is brittle.

"Yeah, and?"

She meets his gaze, jaw clenching. "I'm not getting hauled up for murder, if that's what you were hoping. Sorry to disappoint you."

He shrugs heavily, remembering the way Tug grunted as the Pin screamed under his fists. The dealer didn't stand a chance. "Doesn't matter to me. Prison's prison."

"True enough." She slumps backwards, mirroring him except for the delicately crossed ankles. "I misjudged Tug. I thought he'd side with her over the Pin, not shoot her. Over the kid."

"Hell of a thing to misjudge." Her hands clench around the straps of her purse.

"I wanted you to pin him, you know. I could have sent you chasing halfway to Los Angeles, got the Pin to shoot you... anything."

"Why're you telling me?"

She shrugs, staring down the darkened hallway. Her shoulders stay hunched.

This is the most Brendan's said to anyone since the football field.

"Don't you have anywhere better to be?" he asks, tugging up bravado from somewhere. She ducks her head.

"No."

Of course. Her reputation's in shreds; she might as well walk the city naked as go near her normal crowd. "Not much point in posting bail, then."

"You never know." One soaked red shoe scrapes across the floor. "Guess I'll go find someone to dance with."

She isn't moving, so he snorts. "Didn't think you'd work like Kara."

"I could ask you," she points out, eyes glittering from under the brim of her hat. He smiles as mildly as he can, _I know you're trying to rile me_ , and inspects his fingernails. She stays motionless at the corner of his eye.

"Why'd you care about Emily?"

That gets a jump out of her, at least. "What?"

"You heard. Why'd you care about her?"

She closes her eyes. "I don't know."

"Not good enough." _For what?_

"All right. She was funny. She wasn't snide, didn't need to always let you know that she was only being polite. Didn't seem to be after much - I mean, the drugs, but she seemed more interested in being liked than anything else she was after." Laura's voice drops. "She was always sketching when she was with us. I've got one she did of me still sitting in the drawer on my nightstand."

Brendan's got one of himself tucked on a shelf in his closet. In it, he's half-asleep and smiling, pieces of grass stuck in his hair.

"Sure," he says abruptly, shoving himself off the wall. "Sure, let's dance."


End file.
